| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Alcibiades I by Plato: SOCRATES: Then in taking care of what belongs to you, you do not take care
of yourself?
ALCIBIADES: Certainly not.
SOCRATES: For the art which takes care of our belongings appears not to be
the same as that which takes care of ourselves?
ALCIBIADES: Clearly not.
SOCRATES: And now let me ask you what is the art with which we take care
of ourselves?
ALCIBIADES: I cannot say.
SOCRATES: At any rate, thus much has been admitted, that the art is not
one which makes any of our possessions, but which makes ourselves better?
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Secret Places of the Heart by H. G. Wells: "It is frightfully distressing," she said when he got round
to her, and for a time she could tell him nothing more. She
was having tea and she gave him some. She fussed about with
cream and cakes and biscuits. He noted a crumpled letter
thrust under the edge of the silver tray.
"He talked, I know, very intimately with you," she said,
coming to it at last. "He probably went into things with you
that he never talked about with anyone else. Usually he was
very reserved, Even with me there were things about which he
said nothing."
"We did," said Dr. Martineau with discretion, "deal a little
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Modeste Mignon by Honore de Balzac: property invested in the funds. But if I am not rich, neither do I
have the reliefs and consolations of life in a garret, the toil
uncomprehended, the fame in penury, which belong to men who are
worth far more than I,--D'Arthez, for instance.
Ah! what prosaic conclusions will your young enthusiasm find to
these enchanting visions. Let us stop here. If I have had the
happiness of seeming to you a terrestrial paragon, you have been
to me a thing of light and a beacon, like those stars that shine
for a moment and disappear. May nothing ever tarnish this episode
of our lives. Were we to continue it I might love you; I might
conceive one of those mad passions which rend all obstacles, which
Modeste Mignon |
